


Dig Two Graves

by HematiteBadger



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 20:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HematiteBadger/pseuds/HematiteBadger
Summary: Before you embark on a journey of revenge, arm yourself accordingly.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr under the title 'Retribution.'

In the few moments of sleep that Lovelace manages, the same dream comes to her every time. A low, hissing whisper, coiling around her rage. _What do you need?_

She knows what she wants to say, but even in her dreams her people come first. _Rescue. Safety. Protection, for my crew if not for me_. There’s never a response, and she can feel something huge and powerful drawing away from her in disappointment. On waking, she remembers nothing but a vague sense of unease.

Until the night Hui dies. Until the night when the voice asks its question, and she gives the answer she wanted to give from the start. _Revenge_.

There’s a hiss like laughter, like triumph, as the voice curls more tightly around her. _Yes. This I can give you_.

*

Lovelace doesn’t tell Fourier how she suddenly knows how to get the shuttle working, doesn’t try to explain waking up and feeling as if someone has written the schematics with crystal clarity across the inside of her skull, and the other woman is so relieved to have an answer that she doesn’t question it. Fourier crafts the machine that will keep them alive and get them back home, and silently, secretly, Lovelace arms it.

Retribution – Lovelace isn’t in the habit of naming weapons, but this one _demands_ a name – is like nothing she would have designed without the fever-dreams that haunt her sleep. Something between a gun and a bomb, it’s pure and burning death, the incarnation of explosive finality. _Overkill_ , she thinks, and something in her head corrects her. _Certainty_. Anything that Retribution takes down will _stay_ down. It might have scared her once, to hear her tell herself  that the enemy she faces merits this kind of extreme reaction, but she’s seen enough that she knows it’s warranted. And so does Retribution. _Cutter. Rachel Young._ The names are carved neatly and clearly into two of its barrels, the others left blank and waiting for the names she doesn’t know yet.

Lovelace doesn’t remember carving them. She doesn’t remember a lot of Retribution’s construction process. That should probably worry her more than it does. As she studies the carvings, running her fingers over the precise letters, the murky and flickering lights of the shuttle make the shadows pool around her like smoke billowing from her skin.

_Vengeance…_

_*_

Retribution sings in sympathetic vibration with Lovelace’s rage as the final pieces fall into place and she sees the betrayal that should have been obvious. She wants Selberg to _die_. She wants him to _suffer_. She wants to see starlight through the hole she’s going to blow in his chest. _Yes_ , the voice hisses. _Take the first one_.

She actually sees it this time. The next blank barrel burns with purple light, etching the name _Elias Selberg_ into the metal. She suppresses a gasp and sees the smoke move with her breath. For the first time she hesitates, wondering what she’s gotten herself into, what pact she’s made. Her heart catches just enough to save Selberg’s life for now, as she finds herself incapable of pulling the trigger. Retribution’s heavy handle incapacitates him, at least, and as the whisper rises to a scream of thwarted rage she makes her escape.

Shaking hands launch the shuttle. Lovelace gasps again, heavy breaths that almost become sobs as the smoke hisses and screams and swirls around her. It settles as she does, growing more insidious as her panic fades. _You have made your choice_ , it reminds her, bubbling with restrained anger at her failure. _You know what must be done_.

It’s right. She has her path. She’s plotted her course and it’s time to see it through. _Next time_ , she promises herself and the voice as she pulls herself into the cryopod, _next time I won’t hesitate_.

There’s a mollified feeling around her, a slow and approving hiss. _Vengeance_ , it whispers once more. _Vengeance will come_.

The smoke curls around her body once more, cocooning her like the cold air that’s already beginning to freeze her, and she has time for one last thought before the ice plunges her mind into darkness. _Vengeance will come_ , she echoes. _Whatever the price._

_*_

She draws a breath, ragged and raw, the air tearing at her throat as her body begins to wake. Alarms clamor at her, louder than she can sift through and comprehend as the cryopod cracks open, spewing white frost and black smoke. She fumbles for the edges, pulling herself out with great difficulty. Her body is slow to respond to her commands, as awkward as if she’d never used it before. Her head feels like it’s filled with a dark mist.

Someone is shouting at her over a speaker, the words incomprehensible until one familiar one catches her focus.  _Hephaestus_. She knows that word, has it engraved indelibly on her memory. The smoke in her head doesn’t clear so much as it wraps itself around the word, spinning itself into the aggregate of other words and fragments that come with it and binding them together into a web that has at its center the name _Captain Isabel Lovelace_.

 _Captain Isabel Lovelace_. That’s her name. It must be. She remembers now. Who she is. Why she’s here. The price she agreed to.

The stranger is still shouting through the speaker, trying to claim the position Lovelace knows is rightly hers. Nice try. Lovelace’s indignant response is enough to quiet the stranger long enough to buy her a little more time to gather herself together, let her thoughts coalesce. When the command to prepare for docking comes, she’s ready to agree to it. This is what she’s here for.

Retribution hums at her side as she draws it in the airlock. It’s been pressed so tightly against her all this time that she’s surprised it didn’t freeze to her skin while they were in cryo. She runs a hand over the weapon, silently promising it that she’ll get it right this time, her fingers lingering over the blank barrels as the door begins to open. It’s time to meet the new crew, the new Goddard pawns sent to work against her.

It’s time to learn their names.


End file.
